


when you grow up.

by porcelainsimplicity (pyroallerdyce)



Series: i refuse to admit there was a beach divorce (aka all my charles/erik fics) [67]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Sports, Alternate Universe - Tennis, Boys Kissing, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kissing, M/M, Short One Shot, Wordcount: 5.000-15.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 21:31:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18507475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyroallerdyce/pseuds/porcelainsimplicity
Summary: when you were young enoughdoing all that fun kid stuffdid you think of what you'd be?marco polo in the poolkickball games behind the schoolplaying tag and hide 'n' seekwhen you grow up, what kind of boy will you be?oh, what will you be?or:  Charles was an athlete that suffered a career-ending injury.  When his old friend Erik suffers an injury that ends his career as well, a connection that had been broken begins to reform as they learn to live without the sport that they love.





	when you grow up.

**Author's Note:**

> Um, this is what I do when it's two o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep. Just so you know. I have no idea if this is any good or not, but if it is and you like it, let me know.

when you were young enough  
doing all that fun kid stuff  
did you think of what you'd be?  
marco polo in the pool  
kickball games behind the school  
playing tag and hide 'n' seek  
when you grow up, what kind of boy will you be?  
oh, what will you be?  
_when you grow up – priscilla ahn_

From the first moment his mother had ever put a tennis racquet in his hands, Charles had wanted to be a professional tennis player. He'd dreamed of it as a child, worked for it as a boy, and had so nearly achieved it as a teenager. Eighteen-years-old, had cracked the top one hundred and was nearing the top fifty, and then like a snap of fingers, it was over. It was just weeks into the new year when it happened, the hot, Australian sun shining down upon him when he ran to his left during his first round match to chase down a sharp-angled forehand, and all he remembers after that is pain. Pain on the court when he tried to get back up and realized he couldn't move his leg without screaming; pain as the doctors and trainers tried to stabilize his knee; pain with every bump the ambulance made on its way to the hospital; pain of an entirely different sort when the doctor came to him after the surgery and quietly explained that while the surgery had been successful, the damage was too severe, and there was no possible way for him to ever play sport of any kind, let alone tennis, again. The news was heartbreaking, but he was undeterred. He went through months upon months of frustrating rehabilitation only to be told that the severely limited range of motion he'd regained was as good as it was going to get and that he'd probably need the assistance of a cane or some sort of crutch for the rest of his life. 

After that, he'd sworn he'd never set foot anywhere near a tennis court ever again. His mother was disappointed with his defeatist attitude, but his sister understood, and he was thankful for that because it made it easier to turn down invitation after invitation to join Raven at this tournament or that grand slam. He'd kept living in the house Raven had bought just outside London after the rehab was over until summer had come and Wimbledon fever had gripped the nation, when moving back to Oxford had suddenly seemed a much better idea than it had before. And he'd stayed in Oxford until he realized that his short travels around the world had broadened his mind too much to be able to stay happy in his hometown, and decided that he needed adventure in his life, even if it no longer involved tennis. So he'd walked down to the store, ignoring the sympathetic looks from people he'd known his entire life, bought the biggest map he could find, and put it up on the wall when he got home. Then he searched the house for the darts that went with the board that hung on the back of the garage door, and once he found them, he stood across from the map and started throwing. 

The first dart landed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and whilst drowning was appealing, it wasn't what he was searching for. The second dart landed in the middle of Antarctica, and while he'd always wanted to hang out with penguins, that wasn't what he was searching for either. The third dart landed in Australia, and upon closer inspection, right into the middle of the 'b' of Melbourne. He stared at it for what felt like hours, reached to pull the dart from the map a couple of times only to stop himself, and after careful deliberation – because after all, Melbourne was the city in which the injury had occurred – he made up his mind. The third dart it was. 

Three months later, Charles was living in a one bedroom flat just off the corner of Orr and Victoria, close to the University of Melbourne, where he was taking random classes to occupy his time and to please his mother, who felt that now that tennis was out of his life, he needed to get an education so that he could secure a real job someday. He spent his afternoons in local coffee shops or browsing the stores, and even though he was on the other side of the world from practically everything he'd ever known, he felt more alive than he had since he'd been on the court that day nearly two years earlier. He didn't put much effort into making friends, and he let his connections with the friends he'd made on the tour slip away. He was isolating himself and he knew it, but he had decided that before anyone else could get to know him, he needed to get to know himself first.

When tennis fever hit the following January, he let Raven talk him into coming down to meet her at Melbourne Park instead of making Raven come to the flat. He decided on the train ride there that it was going to be a delicious form of self-torture, and reminded himself that he always had loved to torture himself in the most excruciating of ways. He didn't expect to be recognized, but as he realized that the grounds were crawling with people that he once knew very well and people who had potentially once known who he was, he had ducked into a souvenir shop and bought the first hat and pair of sunglasses that he could find. He wandered around, took in qualifying matches on the outside courts and nearly collapsed from the heat, escaped underneath shade trees and nearly collapsed from the ache in his heart, the gut-wrenching, overpowering reminder that he could have been on one of those courts, playing one of those matches. And it was under one of those trees that someone dropped down to the ground next to him, set their racquet bag by their feet, and let out an all too familiar laugh.

“Did you really think the hat and sunglasses were going to work on someone like me?”

Someone like him. He wanted to say that yes, of all the people that could possibly be at Melbourne Park, he wanted his cheesy disguise to work most on someone like him, but instead he reached up and pulled the sunglasses off his face and turned to look Erik Lehnsherr in the eyes. “Fool the world number six? Not likely.”

“World number five,” Erik corrected, a brilliant smile on his face. “I moved up after winning Brisbane.”

“Didn't know that,” Charles murmured, sliding his sunglasses back on and leaning back against the tree. “So to what do I owe this visit from the world number five?”

“I saw you wandering the grounds earlier and didn't believe it was you until Raven told me that yeah, you were here, kicking it with the fans and trying to blend in. So I decided the next time I saw you, I would stop and ask why you haven't answered any of my emails in nearly a year.”

He felt his throat grow tight and dry. “I have my reasons.”

“Yeah. Raven's told me. She's the one I go to whenever I want to know what's going on with you,” Erik said softly. “I want to hear it from you, Charles.”

“It's got nothing to do with you,” he said quickly, his mind quickly realizing how Erik probably would have taken his silence. “It's just that anything to do with tennis hurts too much, so I stopped talking to all the players I knew except for Raven, 'cause I kind of have to keep talking to her.”

“I thought that I was more than just another tennis player to you. Guess I was wrong,” Erik said quickly, abruptly grabbing his racquet bag and standing up. “Enjoy your life.”

Charles watched, confused and helpless, as Erik walked away from him and into the crowd of people, hearing the shrieks of 'Erik!' as the fans noticed his presence. And he remained confused when he saw Erik in the players' lounge the next day and the German wouldn't even look at him, and when it became obvious later that week that Erik was purposely ignoring him, and when Raven told him that he was a daft idiot if he couldn't figure this out. So he decided to stay home from then on because there was really no reason for him to be at Melbourne Park, and he really didn't like this cold shoulder treatment from someone who was once his friend, even if he could admit to himself that he probably deserved it.

Then Erik injured himself during practice. When Raven called him and told him that the word in the player's lounge was that the injury was serious, he felt all of the emotions that he'd felt two years earlier come back to life. And when he finally got his coach to tell him what hospital and room Erik was in, he knew exactly what he needed to do.

Erik had his head turned towards the window when he pushed the door open and walked in. He saw Erik's eyes flick to him quickly then flick back to the window, and when he didn't receive any sort of greeting, he wasn't surprised. Still, he sat down on the chair next to the bed, propped his feet up on one of the metal bars that made up the bed's frame and started to talk. “Have they said how serious it is yet?”

“Serious,” Erik said after several minutes, his voice tired and emotional. “Career-threatening, to be exact.”

“I'm sorry,” he said seriously. “I know how news like that feels.”

“It's my own fault,” Erik muttered. “I was arguing with Raven about you and I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Went over the advertising boards and stuck my arm out to catch me, which of course just made it worse. Tore almost everything in my shoulder. No way I'm ever going to be able to serve again.”

Charles froze as Erik turned his head towards him, unable to do anything but make a strangled noise low in his throat. “What?” he eventually got out. 

“Raven didn't tell you?”

“No.”

Erik sighed and shifted around on the bed, wincing when his shoulder moved the slightest bit. “I figured she would. Save me the trouble of having to explain myself.”

“When does Raven save anyone the trouble of having to do anything themselves?” he asked, drawing a smile from Erik. 

“Good point.”

They sat in silence for several minutes until Charles realized that Erik obviously wasn't going to say any more. “So explain for me?”

“No.”

“No?”

“There's no point,” Erik said, yawning. “It's hopeless, and therefore, it's not important. Do you mind leaving?”

He was shocked by the abrupt end of another conversation, but he didn't want to upset Erik anymore than he already was, and so he stood and walked towards the door. He paused when he got there, turning back to the bed and staring at Erik for a moment. “You are more than just another tennis player to me. I'm sure that you don't believe that, especially given how you're acting and what I've done, but it's the truth.”

“You're right. I don't believe you. Now leave, please.”

He thought about Erik the entire way home, and for the rest of the day, and for most of the night. He tried to push it out of his mind as he watched the tournament on television, and when he heard reports updating Erik's condition on the news, and when Raven tried telling him that he was a daft idiot again. Months went by and not a day passed without Erik crossing his mind in some form, and eventually, it got to be too much. He pushed his philosophy homework to the side and pulled his laptop across his thighs, signed into an email account he'd sworn he'd abandoned and found four hundred and seventy-nine emails from Erik in his inbox. And because he loved to torture himself, he read each and every one of them, took in the tone as it went from friendly to flirtatious to worried to scared to annoyed to angry, and by the time he'd read every last word, he finally understood what it was Erik had meant that day underneath the tree. 

Three days later, after discovering Erik was back in Germany for rehabilitation and it wasn't going very well, after drinking half a fifth of vodka to get up the courage, after drinking the other half to convince himself he really needed to tell him the truth, he signed into the email account again and finally sent a response. 

He wasn't surprised when weeks went by without him getting one back.

**********

Christmas time in Melbourne was different to Christmas time back home, but Charles loved every second of the warmth and the sun instead of the cold and the clouds. He managed to get out of going home to Oxford for the holiday by lying to his mother about plans with some non-existent friends to go to Malaysia, and he was wandering around the central business district on Christmas Eve trying to decide what he was going to barbecue the next day when he spotted the man sitting at a table outside one of his favorite cafés in a hat emblazoned with the German colors and coat of arms. And there may have been a lot of Germans in Melbourne, but Charles was absolutely certain that he knew exactly who that one was. So he wandered over to the café and sat down at a table close to the one the German was sitting at, and he waited for him to look up from the newspaper he was intently reading. He finally did when a waitress approached his table, and before his eyes could look up far enough to see the girl's pretty face, they'd locked with his and Charles discovered that he had been right.

The waitress walked away a few minutes later and the newspaper stayed on the table, and no matter how much he could tell that Erik wanted to tear his eyes away, he never did. Eventually, the small tilt of his head came, and Charles stood up and walked over to the other table, sitting down across from Erik and getting a proper look at him. He looked tired and weary, a little sunburned, and like he couldn't decide whether to be happy to see Charles or to get up and walk away. Eventually, Erik picked the newspaper back up, and the waitress returned with two cups of flat white, and he must have looked startled because Erik couldn't hide his chuckle underneath his breath. They drank their coffee in near silence, Erik commenting every once and awhile on something he had just read, Charles responding with what he knew on the subject from the nightly news. When their drinks were finished and Erik was done reading the back page, Erik stood up and tossed money onto the table before meeting his gaze once more. “Your place? I'm staying with Angel and her family, and this might get a bit uncomfortable with all of them around.”

“Alright.”

The short walk to the flat was in the same semi-silence that they'd felt comfortable with at the café, Erik commenting on things as they walked past, Charles answering questions when he could. Erik gave himself a tour of the flat once they arrived, walking around the small space as Charles went into the kitchen and made some tea. He didn't know how the conversation was going to go, wasn't sure how he wanted the conversation to go, and figured he would start with a safe subject, like finding out what Erik was doing with Angel and her family in Melbourne for Christmas. He finished making the tea and turned to find Erik leaning in the kitchen doorway, his eyes clouded with something that Charles couldn't recognize. 

“Did you mean what you wrote in that email?”

He'd said a lot of things in that email, things that he wasn't sure he'd be able to admit to now that Erik was there in front of him, so he decided to play it safe. “I did. We were always friends, Erik. It wasn't your friendship I was escaping, it was tennis. And friends or not, you were part of my tennis life.”

“I didn't understand,” Erik said, shaking his head. “I didn't understand how you could force me away, how you could just ignore what our relationship had been. And then it happened to me, and now I understand perfectly. It wasn't me, it was tennis. But there's a difference between you and me, Charles. You pushed me out of your life, but I still want you in mine.”

Charles backed up against the counter as Erik stepped into the tiny room, swallowing hard as the German got so close to him they were practically touching. “What does that mean?”

“It means Raven always knew my biggest secret,” Erik murmured. “It means she always tried to get me to tell you because she was convinced you felt the same. But I wasn't. I never was, not until I got that email.”

He gasped as Erik's hands latched onto his hips, muttering under his breath about stupid sisters and why he should have never confided in Raven about that of all things. “I had my reasons for never telling you.”

“And I had my reasons for never telling you,” Erik said softly. “But number one on that list was tennis, and tennis isn't a factor for us anymore, Charles. All the other reasons seem insignificant in comparison to what could be.”

“But...”

“But nothing. We're private citizens now, Charles, out of the public eye. It's no one's business but our own what we do.”

He shuddered as Erik pulled him flush against him, fingers threading through his hair. “Erik......I've never......”

“Neither have I. Never wanted it with anyone but you,” Erik said, meeting Charles's eyes with his own. “May I kiss you?”

He barely nodded before Erik's lips were on his, soft and gentle. The kiss deepened quickly and Charles melted into Erik's embrace, his brain screaming at him for denying himself this for so, so long. It wasn't long before they were clinging to each other, reason abandoned for passion and madness, and he forgot about everything in the world except for the man in front of him.

**********

It was dark when Charles woke, startled by the fact that someone else was sitting on the end of his bed until he made out Erik's silhouette and remembered the events of the afternoon. “What are you doing?”

“Just letting Angel know where I am,” Erik said softly. “I believe she just squealed via text message.”

“So she knows?”

“Yeah, she knows. She made me tell her why I was so nervous on the flight down here. She thought it had something to do with her and was trying to let me down gently!”

Charles laughed softly and sat up, moving closer to Erik and wrapping himself around his back. “Why are you here with her anyway?”

“I needed to get out of Germany before I killed myself,” Erik said, laughing slightly. “I'm only half exaggerating there. I've been debating whether or not to come to Melbourne and track you down ever since I went to Oxford to see you and Sharon told me that you now lived here.”

“She never told me you did that.”

“I know, I asked her not to. I viewed it as a sign that this just wasn't meant to happen, but a couple of weeks after I got back to Munich, Angel asked if I wanted to get away from everything and spend the holiday here with her family. She's as disgusted by the looks I get as I am.”

Charles rested his head on the back of Erik's shoulder and sighed. “I couldn't stand the looks in Oxford. And sometimes people would say things too. 'I'm sorry son,' or 'We really thought you'd win it all,' or the occasional 'Are you sure there's nothing that can be done to get you back on the court?' I hated it. So I left.”

“Nobody ever says anything to me. Just stares at me like I've let the entire country down. As if I had some sort of a choice in the matter. Kind of makes me never want to go back there.” Erik tossed his phone onto the floor and turned around so he was facing Charles, kissing him softly. “When I got Angel's invitation to come here, it felt like the world was wanting me to give this another chance. So I said yes, and I've been hanging out at cafés near your flat ever since I got Raven to tell me where it was. Today was apparently my lucky day to find you.”

“You could have just come over.”

“I wanted it to be natural, not forced. If this was meant to happen, you would find me. And you did.”

Charles shook his head lightly, pressing a hand to Erik's cheek. “You can be a little strange sometimes, Erik. But I like it.”

Erik shifted further onto the bed and pulled Charles down into his embrace, smiling when he felt his arm slide across his waist. “I did a lot of thinking about what could possibly happen here before I got on the plane. I was either going to come to Australia and find happiness or end up on a plane back to Germany with a broken heart. I really, really wanted the first option, but I had to be aware that the second option was a reality. Of course, that didn't stop me from doing some happy daydreaming. If I was going to come here and end up with the first option, then I was going to need a plan.”

“And your plan consisted of waiting at cafés and hoping that I might show up there.”

“No,” Erik said, shaking his head. “That's not the plan I'm talking about. I'm talking about the plan for what happens now.”

Charles shifted onto his side and propped his head up with his hand, staring down at his new lover. “What does happen now?”

“I don't want to be away from you,” Erik said softly, reaching up and playing with Charles's unruly hair. “If I go back to Germany, I'll not only be away from you, I'll be thousands of miles away from you. I can't handle that. I've been thinking about leaving Germany for a while now, and so I think that it would be best for me to move here.”

Charles put his hand on Erik's chest. “Erik, we've slept together once. That's not a reason to move halfway around the world.”

“It's more than that,” Erik said, tangling his fingers together with Charles's on his chest. “Yes, that's all that has happened, but...”

“But we have barely spoken to one another for three years, Erik. A lot more needs to happen before moving halfway around the world for one another should be considered an option.”

“Charles......”

“You're the one who's talking about wanting this to be natural and not forced. I've seen what happens when people rush into things and they don't work,” Charles said quietly. “I made myself a promise that I would never rush into things like that. And I'm holding myself to that promise even more so with you, Erik. You're special, and I know that if we give this the proper amount of time to develop naturally, then it's going to turn into the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. But I'm not going to let us ruin it by moving too fast.”

Erik sighed heavily and brought Charles's hand to his lips, kissing it lightly. “So what do you think happens next then?”

“I think that we enjoy the rest of the time that you're going to spend here. I have no idea when it is that you're leaving. And then, six weeks after you do, I'll get on a plane and come to Munich, or wherever it is that you are by then. And we'll go from there.”

“Six weeks!”

“Yes, six weeks,” Charles said seriously. “We need time to think things through.”

“I've had years to think about this.”

“You know what I mean, Erik. I'm the first to admit that I'm not the same person I was when I was playing tennis, and I think if you took time to think about it, you'd realize you're a different person too.” Charles shifted closer to Erik and bent to press a kiss to his lips. “We need to get to know each other all over again.”

Erik stared up at him for a moment before pulling Charles into a deep kiss, rolling him onto his back and ending the conversation. Charles was only half-annoyed until Erik pulled back and whispered, “Fine, we'll do it your way. And I'm not leaving until Angel does.” Then he wasn't annoyed at all.

**********

He hadn't thought that he'd be so emotional when Erik eventually left, but when he returned to his flat after seeing him off at the airport, Charles found the silence deafening and the loneliness crushing. The texts and emails and phone calls eased the all-encompassing feelings for a short time, but after a couple of weeks, Charles was ready to get on a plane and fly to where Erik was. Erik stopped that plan before Charles could even put it into motion, reminding Charles of what they had agreed to and saying that the time apart had made him realize just how necessary sticking to that pact was.

“I want to be in love with you for the rest of my life,” one text message said. “I don't want to give you up after a few months.”

So they agreed on a date for Charles to fly to Munich, and he marked the days off on his calendar like a sixteen-year-old girl would do, and when he finally was stepping off of the plane, the sight of Erik's bright smile made every second of the six weeks worthwhile. 

They didn't leave Erik's apartment for two days, reacquainting themselves with the level of physical intimacy they had enjoyed before Erik had left Melbourne. And when they finally ventured outside, Charles got a tour of the town that had turned Erik into the person he was, from the house they had lived in when he was born to the tennis courts where Erik had first picked up a racquet, and he noticed how almost everything was referenced in the past tense. 

They were standing near the banks of the Isar river when Charles finally said what had been on his mind for the past few days. “You're really done with this place, aren't you?”

“What?”

“I realized I was done with Oxford when I started thinking about things in the past tense. 'That was the pub I grew up thinking I'd drink in,' or 'I had always thought I'd play with my children in this park someday.' Stuff like that. And that's how you've been talking to me about things for the last few days. Like they won't happen, at least not here.”

Erik sighed heavily and took Charles by the hand, walking him towards a bench and then sitting down on it. “I feel like I don't belong here anymore. It's got nothing to do with my family or my friends, it's just...”

“You've seen the world and it's hard to settle for what you've always known,” Charles finished for him, waiting for Erik to nod in acquiescence before continuing. “That's how I felt about Oxford, and why I had to get away from there.”

“Why did you pick Melbourne?”

“Honestly? I put a map up on the wall and threw darts at it until one landed in a city, and that city happened to be Melbourne.”

Erik laughed. “That's one way of doing it, I suppose.”

“How do you plan on doing it?” Charles asked softly. 

Erik smiled. “I've got the names of major cities around the world written on popsicle sticks. Just need someone to hold them for me so I can close my eyes and pick one. I kind of thought that you might be willing to help me with that.”

“You know I will.”

Erik let go of Charles's hand and dug into his pocket, pulling out a stack of popsicle sticks held together by a rubber band. “Then let's do this.”

“You have them with you?” Charles asked, amused. 

“I was planning on doing this today,” Erik said, flashing Charles a smile. “You beat me to it.”

Charles took the sticks from Erik and started to undo the rubber band. “Am I allowed to ask if Melbourne is written on one of these?”

“Yes, it is.”

“We should take it out.”

“No,” Erik said seriously. “It has to be considered a possibility, and it's a random draw. If I choose it from among the thirty-five or so other choices there, then that's where I'm meant to be going next.”

Charles looked through the sticks, seeing familiar city names like London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, and New York. “I suppose that's fair,” he said, fanning the sticks out and turning towards Erik “Alright, close your eyes and pick one.”

Erik turned towards Charles and closed his eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths before reaching out and choosing a stick from the right side. He held it out without opening his eyes. “You look first.”

Charles collapsed the remaining sticks into one hand before taking the one Erik had chosen with the other, choking back a laugh when he saw what city was written on it. “Well, it's not Melbourne, but it's a hell of a lot closer to Melbourne than here.”

Erik opened his eyes and saw the smile on Charles's face. “Where?”

Charles took the stick and turned it so Erik could read what was written on it. _Sydney._

Erik took the stick from Charles's grasp and smiled. “Is this alright?”

“Well, I think we may have to revise the six weeks in between seeing one another if you're going to be that close,” Charles said seriously before breaking out into a grin. “But that is more than alright as far as I'm concerned.”

“You'll have to help me find a place to live,” Erik said, taking the popsicle sticks from Charles's hand. 

“I can do that,” Charles said softly, glancing around. “You want to go back to your place and celebrate?”

Erik quickly stood up and pulled Charles with him. “I think that's the best suggestion you've made all day.”

**********

“Care to explain to me why the love of your life is living in Sydney when you are living in Melbourne?”

Charles groaned into the phone. “Care to explain to me why you're not preparing for the final of a slam? How the hell did you make it to the final of the French anyway?”

“I was smart enough to play with someone who knows how to play on clay, of course. And yes, Emma and I are preparing. It was during that preparation that she says to me, 'hey, did you hear Erik moved to Sydney?' and I had no clue. I wanted to say something about it being because of you, but don't worry, I refrained. And don't think that I didn't just notice that there was no denying that Erik is the love of your life, by the way, 'cause I totally did.”

“You're an idiot.”

“No, I am a concerned sister wondering why the fuck you're still being a daft idiot.”

Charles collapsed onto his sofa and reached for his history textbook. “I'm not being a daft idiot. Erik and I are doing perfectly fine. We're just taking it slowly.”

“He just moved halfway around the world for you.”

“He did not move halfway around the world for me. He moved halfway around the world because he needed to get the fuck out of Munich before he went insane, and he randomly picked Sydney much like I randomly picked Melbourne.”

“But if he was going to go all the way to Sydney, why didn't he just go the extra few hundred miles and settle into his rightful place in your bed?”

Charles settled the book in his lap and switched which side of his head he had the phone against. “Okay, first, you saying shit like that is disturbing. And second, I'm determined not to fuck this up, Raven, so I am forcing us to take things slowly.”

“There is no possible way that you can fuck this up. You two have been in love with each other for ages. You have no idea how happy I was to hear that you finally did something about it.”

Charles sucked in a deep breath as he flipped through the book to the page where he needed to start reading. “I don't want it to end up like Mum and Dad, alright?”

Raven stayed silent for a few minutes. “Charles.”

“I'm serious.”

“You and Erik are not Mum and Dad. You and Erik are not going to become Mum and Dad. This is not something you should be worrying about.”

Charles sighed heavily and leaned his head back against the cushion. “You don't understand. I'm genetically programmed for relationship failure.”

“No, you don't understand. That's the biggest bunch of bullshit I've ever heard, Charles. Genetically programmed for relationship failure? Do you know how hard Mum would hit you if she heard you say that? Yes, she and Dad didn't work out. No, that doesn't mean you are incapable of having a healthy, successful relationship.”

“Raven...”

“No, you listen to me, moron. You love him, or do I have that completely wrong?”

It took Charles a moment to answer, the realization that he'd never said it aloud hitting him hard. “I love him.”

“You love him, and you are more than willing to work to keep a hold of him, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Then that's what you need to concentrate on. Forget Mum and Dad, forget about anything that has to do with being genetically programmed for relationship failure. Concentrate on Erik and the fact that you love him, and I promise you that good things will happen.”

Charles thought about Raven's words until he heard his sister cough and ask if he was still there. “You really think Erik and I are going to work out?”

“I don't think it, I know it.”

“How can you possibly know it?”

“Stop questioning everything and just go with it! As long as you two want it to work, it will work. Trust me.”

“Fine.”

“Though to be honest, I don't know what he sees in you. Everyone knows that I am the more talented and more intelligent of the Xavier siblings.” 

“Raven?”

“What?”

“Shut up.”

**********

Six weeks became a month. A month became three weeks. Three weeks became two. And before Charles even realized it, they were alternating taking the one and a half hour flight each weekend to see each other. Sydney. Melbourne. Sydney. Melbourne. Sydney, then Sydney again because Erik wanted to take him to a concert, followed by two weekends in Melbourne to make up for disrupting the pattern, and so on. Charles settled on majoring in physiology and focused on being a full-time student. Erik took surfing lessons and trekked his way up and down the beaches of New South Wales searching for the best waves. And every time they were together, Erik would tell Charles how much he loved him, and Charles would do no more than nod in response.

So when he walked out of class on a rainy day and found Erik leaning against his car, soaked to the skin, Charles wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. It was a Monday, and he had just been in Sydney the day before, taking a nighttime flight back and barely getting any sleep before class just so that he could spend as much time as possible with Erik, and Erik was supposed to be headed up to the Gold Coast that day with some friends for another surfing adventure. Still, he walked over to him, moved his umbrella so that they were both shielded by it, and gave Erik a gentle kiss. “This is a nice surprise.”

“Is it?”

Something about the tone of Erik's voice made Charles pause, staring at him for a few minutes before he felt like he could speak again. “What's wrong?”

“I was hoping you'd be able to tell me that.”

“You are making absolutely no sense.”

“Ten months, Charles. Ten months since we started this, and I realized as I watched you walk away from me at the airport last night that I have absolutely no idea how you feel about me.”

Charles sighed heavily and glanced around, noticing that some of his fellow students were staring at them. “How about we take this back to my place, hm? Too many people around.”

“Fine,” Erik said sharply, waiting until Charles had unlocked the car before pulling the door open roughly and getting inside. 

Charles stood there for a moment before taking a deep breath and tossing his backpack and umbrella into the backseat, climbing into the driver's seat and shutting the door. “I get that you're mad at me, but can you please try to not pull the door off its hinges?”

“I am not capable of that. My shoulder is not strong enough.”

“Your shoulder was strong enough to hold me up against the wall while you fucked me yesterday morning, so I disagree.”

Erik turned his head towards the window as Charles backed out of his parking spot. “I don't fuck you. I make love to you.”

Charles knew better than to disagree with that sentiment, and the drive back to his flat was silent but for the soft hum of the radio. When he pulled into his designated parking space, the rain had turned into a downpour, and he turned off the car but made no move to get out of it. “Let's stay in here till the rain lets up a bit.”

“Fine.”

He shifted around in his seat so that he was looking at Erik, who was still resolutely staring out of the window. “There is absolutely nothing I can say that could even begin to make up for the fact that I haven't told you how I feel, but I have my reasons.”

“I'm not sure I want to hear them.”

“You wouldn't have come all the way here if you didn't want to. You would have just called me tonight like always and gone on pretending that everything was fine when it clearly isn't.”

Erik huffed but didn't say anything, so Charles took that as a sign to continue.

“The thought of being in love terrifies me,” he admitted softly. “It's got absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. I think of love and all I can think about is my parents. And if them splitting up hurt me that much, I can't even begin to fathom how much me splitting up with someone I love would hurt. So I spent a lot of time as a kid convincing myself that the only thing I'd ever be in love with was tennis and look at how well that worked out. But now there's you, and I......I'm struggling with it.”

Erik turned to look at Charles, shifting around when he saw the distress on his face. “I don't want our relationship to be a struggle for you, Charles.”

“It's not,” Charles said seriously. “Our relationship is amazing. It's this inner battle between what my heart keeps telling my brain and what my brain keeps telling me that's the struggle. I thought I'd have it figured out before you confronted me about it, but I guess I was wrong. I'm sorry, Erik. You deserve better than this.”

Erik reached into the backseat and grabbed the umbrella, opening his door and climbing out of the car. “Let's go inside.” Charles stayed in the car until Erik walked around and opened his door, holding out his hand. “Come on, Charles. I need to get out of these wet clothes.”

Charles glanced at his backpack before deciding to leave it, and he took Erik's hand and let him pull him out of the car. Once the door was closed, Erik backed him up against it, bringing their lips together in a hard kiss. They stayed locked together for several minutes, content with the familiar weight of each other's bodies and the recognizable touch of each other's hands. The umbrella was dropped to the ground as Erik wrapped his arms around Charles's waist, and even though the rain was cold and he was rapidly getting as soaked as Erik already was, Charles felt like he was on fire. 

He broke the kiss long enough to whisper that they should go inside, and then they were edging their way towards the door of Charles's flat, small steps up over curbs and around the landscaping in such a precise manner that Charles took a moment to ponder how many times they'd done that before. He scrambled to get the door unlocked once they reached it, and they fell into the apartment when the door suddenly opened, landing with a soft thud on the floor. Erik broke out into a laugh as Charles shifted around so he could kick the door shut, and then their lips were together again, hands moving across wet, slick skin, and Charles knew where this was headed but it just didn't feel right.

He rolled Erik onto his back and straddled his hips, sitting up straight and looking down and the flushed face of his lover. “Erik, I love you. I really do. It motherfucking terrifies me, but I do.”

Erik reached up and pulled Charles back down to him, kissing him softly. “That's all I needed to hear,” he whispered. “All I needed to know.”

Charles was about to suggest that they move over to the bed when something occurred to him, and he quickly scrambled off of Erik and opened the door again, plucking the keys out of the lock, prompting Erik to burst out laughing. Charles could barely hold back a laugh of his own, and he waved Erik towards the bed. “Go get comfortable, hm? I've got to go lock the car and pray that my umbrella hasn't blown away. I'll be right back.”

**********

When tennis fever hit Australia again, Charles was determined to stay blind to it, but his mother, his sister, and his boyfriend had different ideas. First, he was tricked into going to the tournament in Sydney by his mother, who had called and said she wanted the four of them to have dinner together while Raven was playing that week and had arranged everything with Erik, and when he had asked Erik where they were supposed to be meeting his family, Erik had only smiled and then driven him straight to the tournament site. And after that first day at the tournament, no one was willing to let him get away with not coming back, so he and Erik ended up sitting next to Sharon in the players' box for every one of Raven's matches. And maybe if Raven was still playing with Emma, the newspapers wouldn't have spent so much time wondering why Erik Lehnsherr was sitting in Raven Xavier's players' box, chatting with Raven's mother and brother as though he was a member of the family. But Raven was playing with the ridiculously talented and highly accomplished Moira MacTaggert now, and the newspapers wrote a lot about the eventual Sydney champions that week, and Charles used every single reference to Erik in every single article in every single paper as a reason to why he was definitely not going to the Australian Open.

But no one was listening to him, and he ended up sitting in between Erik and his mother in Raven's players' box at the Australian Open, and of course the newspapers and the television stations and the blogs all picked up on it. Raven was asked about it in a press conference after their quarterfinal victory, and Charles had nearly punched her when he found out that Raven's response had been that Erik was like a brother to her. He refused to go for the semifinal, instead watching at home on television as the cameras zoomed in on where his mother and his boyfriend were sitting next to each other and listened as the commentators failed miserably at trying to recall just how close of friends the two of them had been during their playing days. 

He found himself courtside for the doubles final a couple of days later, staring down at the court he'd once played on and realizing that he no longer felt that gut-wrenching, overpowering ache that reminded him that he could have been on that court playing. When he looked over at Erik, he didn't see any of that ache in his eyes either, just genuine love and affection reflected back at him, and that's when he finally realized that they'd helped each other move on. For the first time in four years, he enjoyed a tennis match in the way that he used to, when they were little kids and Raven was playing in a tournament that he wasn't in because it was all girls, and he cheered and laughed and nearly cried when they won just because of the unbridled joy on his sister's face. And during their celebrations at a local bar later that night, when a more-than-slightly drunk Erik grabbed a more-than-slightly drunk Charles and kissed him, he didn't think about pulling away; he just kissed him back.

**********

Months later, thanks to the multiple pictures of them kissing that were floating around the internet and the more-than-a-little-creepy information gathering that strangers hiding behind usernames had done, the true nature of their relationship was an open secret. Every time a friend of his sent him the latest blog post full of amateur pictures of the two of them, Charles got stroppy and nearly threw his laptop against the wall. But a gentle hand would wrap around his elbow to hold his arm in place, and the laptop would be taken from his grasp and set aside, and Erik would sweep in and kiss him soundly, distracting him from the fact that their notion that they'd be private citizens hadn't quite worked out the way that they'd thought it would.

He'd plucked up the courage to ask Erik about moving in together about three months earlier, and he was certain that he'd never made the German happier than he had in that moment. Erik's stuff was moved from his place in Sydney into a new flat in Melbourne, one big enough for them to share, and they'd settled into a domestic life that Charles had never thought he'd be happy with. They alternated cooking dinner and washing up the dishes, made a game out of who could fold laundry the fastest, and relaxed in front of the television every Sunday morning to watch whatever live sport was being broadcast that day. They had date night twice a week, bought season tickets to the local Aussie rules football team, and while Charles worked on his degree, Erik volunteered at a local tennis center, teaching young children, most of whom were of German descent and idolized his every move, how to play. 

Sometimes, out of nowhere, Erik would say, “I want to have you forever,” and Charles would respond with “You can have me any time you want,” and then they'd share a look across the room and nothing more would need to be said.

On the day of Charles's graduation from university, before Erik left with Sharon and Raven to head to the venue, he stuffed an envelope into Charles's hand with a cheeky smile. Charles opened it in his car, pulling out a brightly-decorated card that only Erik could have picked out. _Now that you've graduated..._ read the front, _it's time to decide what you want to be when you grow up_ written inside. Charles stuffed it into his pocket and kept it there, running his fingers over the card's edges as he nervously waited for his name to be called out during the ceremony. The card stayed in his pocket throughout the celebratory dinner that night, and throughout the celebratory drinks afterward, and when he was finally alone with Erik in their flat at the end of the day, he pulled it out and waved it in front of his boyfriend's face. “Nice sentiment, but I already know what I want to be when I grow up.”

“And what is that?”

“With you.”


End file.
